Estelle Parsons

When actress Estelle Parsons arrived on the set of "Dick Tracy" last May, she informed producer-director-star Warren Beatty of a small oversight: "I said, 'Warren, I've never even seen a script. I haven't a clue what you mean when you say I'm gonna do the scene now.' " Beatty's not usually so absent-minded, says Parsons, who has a small role in "Tracy" as Tess Trueheart's muffin-baking mom. "With Warren, the project is really more important than life itself.

Sharp blue eyes peer out from beneath a casually cropped pixie mop of gray hair. A magnetic smile, set off by a dark tan, is both warm and savvy. Yet it's Estelle Parsons' unique voice--slightly gravelly, with penetrating timbre and distinctive inflection--that makes the most lasting impression. Mesmerizing yet earthy, it announces the actress' quirky persona like a "Danger: Curves Ahead" sign on a mountain road. Etched on the collective consciousness of the American TV audience as Roseanne's cantankerous mom, Parsons is also remembered for her Oscar-winning performance in the landmark film "Bonnie and Clyde," as well as such recent movies as "Looking for Richard.

Sharp blue eyes peer out from beneath a casually cropped pixie mop of gray hair. A magnetic smile, set off by a dark tan, is both warm and savvy. Yet it's Estelle Parsons' unique voice--slightly gravelly, with penetrating timbre and distinctive inflection--that makes the most lasting impression. Mesmerizing yet earthy, it announces the actress' quirky persona like a "Danger: Curves Ahead" sign on a mountain road. Etched on the collective consciousness of the American TV audience as Roseanne's cantankerous mom, Parsons is also remembered for her Oscar-winning performance in the landmark film "Bonnie and Clyde," as well as such recent movies as "Looking for Richard.

When actress Estelle Parsons arrived on the set of "Dick Tracy" last May, she informed producer-director-star Warren Beatty of a small oversight: "I said, 'Warren, I've never even seen a script. I haven't a clue what you mean when you say I'm gonna do the scene now.' " Beatty's not usually so absent-minded, says Parsons, who has a small role in "Tracy" as Tess Trueheart's muffin-baking mom. "With Warren, the project is really more important than life itself.

"The Lemon Sisters" (selected theaters) are three white ladies from Atlantic City who want to be the Supremes. Best buddies Eloise, Franki and Nola have gone from 1959 to 1982 in a time warp; at 31, they're still doing '60s hits in small-time bars. As played by Diane Keaton, Carol Kane and Kathryn Grody, this unrelated threesome might not be offended if you called them "girls"; that's what they want to be: a girl group.

Looking for ... Herod? Al Pacino stars in "Salome," Oscar Wilde's interpretation of the biblical tale of lust and revenge, directed by Estelle Parsons and with original music by Yukio Tsuji. The production, which had a Broadway run in 2003, was developed by Pacino and Parsons. Jessica Chastain plays the infamous woman scorned, Pacino portrays King Herod and Kevin Anderson is John the Baptist. "Salome," Wadsworth Theatre, 11301 Wilshire Blvd., West L.A. Opens 8 p.m. today. $68 to $93.

Al Pacino, who appeared off-Broadway last fall, will appear on Broadway this spring. The actor will play King Herod in Oscar Wilde's "Salome," opening April 30 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Marisa Tomei will portray the title character, best known for her dance of the seven veils. Also in the cast are Dianne Wiest and David Strathairn. The director is Estelle Parsons. Preview performances begin April 12.

Al Pacino, Kevin Anderson and Jessica Chastain will appear in Oscar Wilde's "Salome," opening April 27 at the Wadsworth Theatre in L.A. Based on the biblical tale of lust, betrayal and revenge, the play was developed over a period of two years by Pacino and director Estelle Parsons at the Actors Studio in New York. With original music by Yukio Tsuji, it will be performed as a dramatic staged reading duplicating the 2003 Broadway production.

Regarding Martin Bernheimer's criticisms of "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny," as produced by the Music Center Opera (" 'Mahagonny' Goes Hollywood," Sept. 12): I was the associate producer of the 1970 production of "Mahagonny" in New York with Barbara Harris and Estelle Parsons and gifted producer-director Carmen Capalbo. He too attempted to contemporize certain elements of the opera, which resulted in injunctions, arbitration and talented people calling each other vile names.

Hollywood continues to give its regards -- and sell its properties -- to Broadway. "Legally Blonde" is being turned into a stage musical retelling the story of a Bel-Air sorority queen (played on screen by Reese Witherspoon) who matriculates at Harvard Law School to pursue the boyfriend who dumped her.

"Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction?," Mark Twain once wondered. "Fiction, after all, has to make sense." Of course, Twain never saw "Mercy," the solo performance piece by Martha Gehman at the Met Theatre, which seems to offer elements of both truth and fiction but makes very little sense of either. A free-style, evidently semi-autobiographical rant, "Mercy" features Gehman,the daughter of actress Estelle Parsons, acting out the story of what looks to be an ill-fated romance.

She lives on as the powerful voice of a lost generation. But, like most girls her age, Anne Frank also wallowed in the trivialities of adolescence: boys, gossip, stormy standoffs with Mom. "They say she can't stand me. But I don't care, since I don't like her much either," Anne wrote about a classmate on June 15, 1942, shortly before the Frank family went into hiding from the Nazis.